Sunday, 24 February 2008

Girl Geek Dinner 0

The first Girl Geek Dinner, Sydney was held on Thursday, at
Chinta Ria. For those of you who haven't heard of this: women working
in computing/IT get together, have dinner, discuss technical topics
and generally network. Damana has been organising this over
the last month and a half or so. While the events are intended for
women, each woman can escort one man. I was there as Damana's escort,
acting in a supporting role. But, I will pause and make very clear
here that independently of any personal connections in this particular
instance, I fully support this idea. It's a great idea and I'd like to
see more of this sort of thing.

So, as a guy at a Girl Geek Dinner, what did I think of it? To be
completely honest, it was unusual. There are few enough gatherings of
outgoing geeks and when there are the demographics are depressingly
predictable. The Girl Geek Dinner was different but not
dramatically. The overall mood and atmosphere of the group was what
you'd expect from a crowd of people who don't know each other but
share an interest. There was a lot of loud, friendly talking. People
generally moved around and talked to others they hadn't met. Just like
a bunch of strangers socialising.

But there were still differences. Differences that only exhibited on
individual scales. Ultimately, this is an issue of gender, oppression
and hostile environments. Please bear with me. Try to take this in the
spirit that it is intended and above all remember that I am a major
proponent of diversity in all its forms in all environments. I don't
subscribe to any 'fundamentally different' hypotheses; in my view
we're all the largely the same after individual and cultural
differences are accounted for.

Onto the differences. Firstly, the women seemed significantly more
relaxed in a work-type social setting than I have seen before. There
was a lot of very loud talking, joking, laughing; a lot of alcohol was
drunk (thanks Google!), the food was enjoyed (thanks ThoughtWorks!)
and there were no more moments of self-conscious reflection than you'd
expect when there are introverts around. This was particularly
noticeable later in the night when some sleazy sales guy from another
group tried to attach himself to us. It was a pretty clear reminder of
what normally confronts women when they socialise together.

But that's all external observation; me theorising about motivations
and feelings in a group to which I do not belong. I can be more
certain about my own feelings. Several times, early in the night I
mentally gave a start and felt that I had to move seats. I didn't
though when I realised where that sense was coming from. I was one guy
sitting at a table, laughing and talking with a bunch of women. And in
Australia, at least, you just don't do that. I can't be certain where
this was coming from. Either, it is not appropriate for a guy to be
showing that much attention to a group of women (cf. sleazy sales
guy), without also talking to some men occasionally; or, that men
would regard other men who spend all night talking only to women
poorly. So, was it fear of a negative reaction from men or fear of a
negative reaction from women? Because I can say that it was not an
inability to relate, not a lack of common interests: once I identified
and ignored the feeling, it quickly disappeared, and I had a great
night. Either way, this is the sort of thing that needs to be
identified and disposed of before the inherent sexism in computing can
be fixed.

But, apart form all that serious discussion of gender interaction, I
had a great night and it seemed that so did pretty much everyone
else. Thank you very much to Damana for organising this,
ThoughtWorks for paying for the food and Google for
providing the drinks. It was very interesting to get a real chance to
talk to women in computing and about computing when I was the minority
and I hope these sorts of events can do something to make computing a
more balanced, realistic and enjoyable environment. Any geek guys out
there, I'd recommend trying to get a date to the next one!